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I love daring activities, the more curious the better; night scuba diving, active volcano research, the highest bungee jump, flying trapeze. Which is why the first time I saw someone climb 40 meters into the uncharted and bizarre Amazon Rainforest canopy to set-up a research camera, my first thought was: I want to do that. …

Conflict between humans and wildlife is increasing as human communities expand and wild habitats are destroyed. As a winner of the Human Wildlife Conflict Tech Challenge, the Arribada Initiative is working in partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and WILDLABS to develop a low-cost, open source early detection system to help protect both humans …

The power of 1 hour of solar energy reaching our planet is equivalent to our current annual global energy consumption. Nature knows this – virtually all life depends on photosynthesis in the food chain. Photosynthesis is the process through which plants use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbohydrates to fuel their growth and …

It’s $50, the size of a credit card, and can record uncompressed audio at 384,000 samples per second. The AudioMoth, designed and developed by the Open Acoustic Devices team, offers researchers and acousticians access to high quality recording at an entry level price point. Over the past few months, the Arribada Initiative team have been …

I was delighted to discover Tim Everett’s blog documenting the use of RTKLIB and uBlox GPS receivers. RTKLIB is an open source program that can be used to interpret raw GNSS GPS data, for example, to work out GPS positions from a batch of raw measurements at a later date vs in the field live. …

Prior to my Fellowship, I embarked on a unique project to dramatically reduce the cost of tagging green sea turtles. The objective was to acquire spatial and behavioural data using open source principles and technologies. 5 tags were deployed, and two weeks later, the first nesting female green sea turtle we had tagged returned with …

Today, it all begins. Luckily, it’s a wonderful blue sky day too. This morning I’ll be sipping my coffee as a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow. This, to me, is a very big thing indeed – it’s my chance to make a difference and address unlocking access to open, and affordable, conservation technology. I’m incredibly grateful to …